Grace de Capitani Movies

A working mother deals with the people involved in her life in this French comedy. Anne is a TV series editor. She is mother to a teenage boy by her ex-husband Daniel, and to twin 8-year old daughters by a mysterious other man. The girls' father, Arthur an irresponsible musician, shows up suddenly and must face the wrath of Anne, especially since he insists on resuming the relationship. She is confused because she is already involved with Regis, a selfish and married man. She is also interested in Jacques who is almost divorced. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

A "ripoux" is, in French slang, a policeman who accepts bribes, shakes down "honest" criminals for a cut of their action, at a level which can range from the familiar (U.S.) paradigm of accepting free donuts, to serious criminal activity. This comic police thriller is a sequel to the hugely successful 1984 film Philippe Noiret and Thierry Lhermitte about a pair of Parisian policemen, one an old, experienced "ripoux" and the other one an idealistic new-kid-on-the-block type, who has to be shown the ropes (and mildly corrupted) by the older man. In this story, Noiret's young partner is having misgivings about his misdeeds, and in any case wants to try for a promotion to police commissioner. What with one thing and another, this leads to both men being ignominiously transferred to another beat, to the (temporary) jubilation of the people they've been sponging off of for years. It turns out that the new cops on their old beat are far less helpful and easygoing than they were, and soon the denizens of their Montmartre district beat are beating on the doors of city hall begging for their return. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

In this light French comedy, Marie and Jerome (Marlene Jobert) and Patrick Chesnais) are a middle aged couple desperate to have a child. They have tried to deal with the official adoption agencies, but the bureaucracies are so hidebound that they'll likely reach their dotage before a child becomes available. Next they try to persuade a pregnant teen to give up her baby, but that doesn't work either. Marie and Jerome are left to resort to more desperate measures. Various well-known French funnymen have cameos, including Romain Bouteille and Christian Clavier. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

This run-of-the-mill police comedy drama focuses on two policemen, René (Philippe Noiret), a somewhat grubby plainclothes policeman who has lived on bribes and minor racketeering for the last 20 years, and his new partner François (Thierry Lhermitte), especially honest and certainly naive. René is too accustomed to the good life with his lover, a former prostitute, and too much addicted to the racetrack to give it all up because of a straight-arrow partner. And so he fixes François up with the gorgeous Natasha (Grace de Capitani), herself a high-class prostitute whose charms leave the young cop besotted and whose expensive tastes leave him broke. Driven by love above all other concerns, François not only joins René in his schemes, he eventually gets an idea for swiping enough money to retire them both for life. Both Noiret and Lhermitte give top-notch performances that help to compensate for the otherwise predictable script. Ripoux was awarded 1984 Cesars for "Best Film" and "Best Director." ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi